19th oct- pitch
The Pitch
It's rightly said, you always find your way through, given that your are determined. I was fortunate enough to find mine too. I was happy to be a part of Gabriel's team. Their business idea involved providing cold brew concentrate to students. At this point all I knew was that I had to work hard and carry on . I was eager to start a new journey with them.
Before finally adopting the idea of cold brew concentrate, I had a few questions in mind.
- What distinguishes us from established coffee companies?
- What is our unique selling point?
- How is the team work distribution like?
- What are the motivations of the team members to join this course?
I finally met up with the team leader, Gabriel, on 15th October to discuss my questions. Finally, when I got my answers, I was satisfied to be a part of the team. Moreover, I was responsible for the website development and management of external relations.
Our presentation for our business pitch was on 19th October 2019. I was responsible for the market research, including SWOT and competitor's analysis. Working on it gave me insight about the business that I was about to venture into. Also, it gave me a sense of idea of the possible challenges in future. What I deduced from it was that our brand positioning and marketing strategies have to be well crafted, given the nature our business.
There are brands that sell cold brew coffee, like Starbucks, Bossley and Bootstrap, however, how we distinguish from them is by providing cold brew concentrate, instead of ready to drink cold brew coffee for people who want a healthier and a premium option to coffee. This is how we identify ourselves.
I learnt that sometimes second persons perspectives can serve as an eye-opener. This realisation came during the Q/A round of our business pitch. Some urgent questions came to me after the presentation.
- Are we providing convenience or quality as a brand?
- Will 1 litre discourage customers to buy our cold brew concentrate?
- Are we unique enough to capture the target market?
- How to establish a level of trust in our product in students?
In the debrief session, I raised my concerns and we concluded that with our product, we aren't providing convenience but quality. Moreover, it is essential for us to have a smaller volume to sell our product and hence, we decided to go with 500ml. Furthermore, we decided to test our products during the distribution of exam welfare pack, as planned, before thinking of any modification to our designed product. Overall, I was thankful of other teams for bringing up issues/topics in front of us. It challenged us to think from different angles.
At this point, my next task involved connecting with Ntuitive, the entrepreneurship arm of NTU and starting the website development. I will be working on it over the next few days.
I am extremely excited for my journey with Alpaca. Hope this story unravels well.
